B’nai B’rith is outraged by the torching of Joseph’s Tomb, a holy site in the ancient city of Shechem in the West Bank, by Palestinian rioters. As of yet, no injuries or deaths have been reported.

While Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces managed to disperse the crowds and douse the fire, significant damage has been reported in the women’s section of the site. The arson came shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Palestinian leadership to stop a wave of attacks on Jews. After a week of silence, PA President Mahmoud Abbas finally issued a statement condemning the group’s actions and announcing plans to create an investigatory committee.

While vicious attacks have left seven dead and more than 30 wounded—Abbas issued no condemnation while other PA officials have been busy inciting this kind of violence. B’nai B’rith is appalled that the PA ignored multiple violent deaths before finally denouncing this act of wanton arson.

B’nai B’rith International opposes the Palestinian Authority’s campaign to have its flag flown outside of United Nations headquarters with the flags of U.N. member states. The Palestinians secured status as a U.N. non-member observer “state” in 2012, but are not actual members of the world body. This push comes as the Palestinian mission to the U.N. reportedly plans to submit a resolution calling for the flying of all “observer state” flags. An early draft of the resolution named both the Palestinians and the Vatican as non-member observer states that should have their flags flown. The draft resolution was apparently circulated without the Vatican’s authorization and the Holy See has asked the Palestinians to remove any mention of the Vatican from the draft. The flags outside the United Nations represent U.N. member states and the Palestinian territories do not as of yet comprise a state, owing to the Palestinians’ consistent refusal to reach a meaningful, negotiated two-state solution that includes recognition of the Jewish state. It would furthermore be inappropriate to fly the Palestinian flag as part of the Palestinian territories are illicitly ruled by the terrorist group Hamas, which is openly committed to the destruction of an existing U.N. member state, Israel. The Palestinians cannot be the only one of the world’s countless communities with nationalist aspirations to be unilaterally and superficially afforded the trappings of sovereignty. The United Nations has long joined in insisting that the Palestinian conflict with Israel be settled exclusively through direct talks and agreement with Israel. Unrequited political concessions to the Palestinians only further remove any incentive for Palestinian leaders to finally enable their constituents to live alongside Israelis in peace.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement: B’nai B’rith International is deeply disappointed by the U.S. government’s intervention on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as it petitions a New York federal court that ruled the PA and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) liable for terrorist attacks that killed 33 Americans and injured more than 450 during the Second Intifada. The administration filed a “statement of interest” expressing its concerns of a PA financial collapse should the Palestinian government be forced to pay out $665.5 million in damages to 10 American families. The historic ruling was announced in February when the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York jury sided with the plaintiffs, awarding them $218.5 million in damages, a figure that triples to $655.5 million under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act. It was the first case successfully prosecuted under the Anti-Terrorism Act. There needs to be a price paid for committing acts of terror and the means available to prosecute those responsible. While the victims’ families cannot bring their loved ones back, they can go to the courts to achieve redress. That is the process that led to the court’s ruling. If the Palestinian leadership, and those who plan and give the orders to carry out terrorist acts, know they can escape any punishment in the United States, what barrier would there be to additional attacks against American citizens? The judgment of the court should stand.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki being welcomed at the International Criminal Court in April 2015.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is once again misappropriating an important global forum to advance its own agenda rather than to advance the cause of peace. In a move that further demonstrates its true intentions, which is to use global venues to strong-arm Israel (rather than negotiate), the PA has accused Israel of “war crimes.” The PA provided documents to the International Criminal Court (ICC) detailing what it claims are Israel’s “war crimes,” relating to Israel’s self-defense in Gaza in 2014, along with its settlement construction projects in other parts of Israel. This incessant effort to internationalize the conflict with Israel shows the PA’s true hand. The PA consistently has tried to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish state by outlandishly characterizing Israel’s attempts to defend itself from terrorist attacks as war crimes. Six months ago, when PA President Mahmoud Abbas submitted an application to the ICC, B’nai B’rith wrote: “In order to preserve the essential principle of conflict resolution through negotiation, and the fundamental right and duty of responsible states to combat terrorism, Palestinian exporting of political grievances to The Hague must be firmly rejected internationally.” While the delivery of these documents makes for good show, true efforts by the Palestinians to work for peace are nonexistent. The delivery of these documents should be viewed by the world community as yet another cynical move to divert attention from the complete lack of effort by the PA to work toward peace.

B'nai B'rith International President Allan J. Jacobs (Right) and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin (Left) present Pope Francis (Center) with a framed 1965 edition of The Jerusalem Post with coverage on Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council document that helped to transform Catholic-Jewish relations.

A multinational delegation of B’nai B’rith leaders met privately with Pope Francis on June 25 at the Vatican, the first international Jewish audience with the pope since the Vatican announced an agreement on church issues with “the State of Palestine” and the pope separately acknowledged non-recognition of Israel as amounting to anti-Semitism. The meeting came during the 50th anniversary year of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council document that helped to transform Catholic-Jewish relations.B'nai B'rith International President Allan J. Jacobs celebrated the pope's commitment to “advancing the path of your predecessors in signaling the Church’s commitment to the Jewish people, its respect for Judaism, its denunciation of persisting anti-Semitism, and its due recognition of the State of Israel.” At the same time, he told the pontiff that “tragically, no enduring Palestinian-Israeli peace can be possible as long as powerful forces deny the right of a Jewish state to live within any boundaries in Jews' only ancestral homeland. It is in light of this that it is so important that Palestinians not be afforded incentives to pursue political aims outside of meaningful and direct negotiations, compromise and comprehensive bilateral agreement with Israel." On the eve of the current June 30 deadline for international negotiations with Iran over its illicit nuclear program, Jacobs also emphasized that "if it weren’t enough that Iran openly pledges Israel’s destruction and lethally empowers foremost terrorist groups—responsible for carnage as far away as Buenos Aires, whose unresolved 1994 AMIA bombing you have consistently highlighted—this rogue government has aggressively pursued the ability to acquire the most dangerous of weaponry... [M]ore attention needs to be paid to the telling fact that Iran’s actions have broadly united its neighbors—Arabs and Israelis alike—in urgent, and unprecedented, alarm."

The B'nai B'rith statement said that the “continuing, extraordinary transformation in the relationship between our faith communities can serve as a source of inspiration and optimism for so many others around the world, not least at a time of tensions and conflicts too often influenced by religion... We must make the deepening Christian-Jewish kinship further known among our own adherents around the world—from clergy to educators to young people—and we must progress from dialogue to concrete partnership in tackling the array of challenges that confront our constituencies and all members of the human family. Among these are the protection of our shared environment, care for the poorest and most vulnerable in society, the advancement of quality education for all, the encouragement of international peace, and the combating of all forms of extremism and bigotry.”

B’nai B’rith expressed support “to our Christian friends worldwide—and we specifically offer our immense concern, and abiding solidarity, as Christians in so many parts of the Middle East are now faced with discrimination, threats and outright persecution. We have them in our thoughts and our prayers." Since Israel, a rare Middle Eastern democracy where Christians and other minorities have continually increased, itself represents a threatened minority presence in the region, the B'nai B'rith delegation decried "an economic warfare movement, present even in some religious denominations, that singles out the Jewish state for punitive campaigns."

This is not B’nai B’rith’s first time meeting with Pope Francis: In 2013, B’nai B’rith International Director of United Nations and Intercommunal Affairs David Michaels attended the installation of the pope and the first interreligious meeting with him at the Vatican. In 2014, Michaels also greeted Francis at the Western Wall in Jerusalem during the papal visit to Israel. And before he was known around the world at Pope Francis, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio hosted B’nai B’rith’s Kristallnacht commemoration in Buenos Aires in 2012.

“Our meeting with Pope Francis provided us an opportunity to directly reaffirm the bond between the Jewish community and Catholics worldwide, on the 50th anniversary of Nostra Aetate. It also gave our delegation an important chance to discuss urgent issues in the Middle East that affect both faiths in the region,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said.

The B’nai B’rith delegation additionally met, or is scheduled to meet, with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni; Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin; Bishop Paul Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States; Emanuela D'Alessandro, diplomatic advisor to Italian President Sergio Mattarella; Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and its Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews; Cardinal Peter Turkson, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; Zion Evrony, ambassador of Israel to the Holy See; Kathleen Doherty, chargé d'affaires at the United States Embassy in Rome; and leaders of the Italian Jewish community and B'nai B'rith Rome.

In addition to Jacobs and Mariaschin, among the other members of the B’nai B’rith delegation were Chairman of the Executive Board of Directors Gary Saltzman (Denver, Colo.); B’nai B’rith Europe President Erika van Gelder (The Netherlands); Chairman of the B’nai B’rith International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy Joseph Harari (Panama); Haim Katz, Chairman of the B'nai B'rith World Center in Jerusalem (Israel); and President of B’nai B’rith Argentina Mario Wilhelm (Argentina).

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement: B’nai B’rith International lauds the jury in a New York federal court for handing down a historic verdict in the battle against terror, finding the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) liable for terrorist attacks that killed 33 Americans and injured more than 450 during the Second Intifada. The plaintiffs included 10 American families whose relatives were killed or injured from 2002 to 2004. They argued that the PA and PLO provided direct and ancillary assistance to the perpetrators of these terrorist attacks, as well as financial compensation to those imprisoned and to the families of those who died. The U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York jury awarded the plaintiffs $218.5 million in damages, a figure that triples to $655.5 million under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act. In an era of rising terrorism, this verdict sets a legal and moral standard for the often onerous pursuit of justice against perpetrators. Moreover, this verdict is a symbolic victory for the families of those Americans killed by the PA and the PLO in the past, such as the U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, Jr., who was taken hostage and shot by PLO militants in 1973. No sum of money can ever heal the pain and suffering of the victims’ families, but this decision, for the first time, has brought a measure of justice to those seeking redress for these murderous acts.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it will open a preliminary investigation into war crimes committed during the summer conflict in the Gaza Strip, hostilities that included, and were precipitated by, massive violence targeting civilians across Israel.

Though it is unclear whether prosecutors at The Hague will formally issue charges, B’nai B’rith condemns this unjustified probe prompted by the Palestinians as the latest page in their playbook that will undoubtedly continue to single handedly undercuts prospects for peace. “We’ve seen in recent weeks that the Palestinian Authority seems incapable of making necessarily hard decisions to negotiate an agreement and would much prefer to have the United Nations Security Council and the ICC do its bidding,” B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs said.

“It also speaks volumes that Mahmoud Abbas would to go to the ICC and spur this investigation while his regime is tied to Hamas terrorists who started the summer conflict by kidnapping and murdering three innocent Israeli teenagers and firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli communities.” The ICC announcement comes on the heels of the U.N. Security Council's decision to reject a Palestinian ultimatum that would have attempted to force the unconditional fulfillment of the Palestinians' political demands on Israel. What the Palestinians are attempting to do now perverts the original objective of a permanent international tribunal that would bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

At the time of its creation many were concerned that, given the United Nation’s failed record in these matters, it would one day be used by the Palestinians to unilaterally advance its agenda against Israel. “The methods that the Palestinian Authority has chosen in an attempt to create a state outside of direct negotiations with Israel by resorting to international pressure can only exacerbate the conflict, not resolve it,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said.

“If the PA is really serious about this process, it should focus its efforts on ending incitement against Israel and making the compromises necessary to finally move toward an agreement.”

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement:B'nai B'rith International strongly condemns Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's reported unilateral application to some 20 international bodies, including the membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Abbas, who has engaged in a governing partnership with Hamas—the radical Islamist terrorist movement that rejects Israel's existence and has repeatedly prompted regional bloodshed—has threatened to escalate a campaign to malign and harm Israel internationally by joining the court and targeting Israelis with war crimes charges there.

The step follows the United Nations Security Council's decision Tuesday to reject a Palestinian ultimatum for forcing the unconditional fulfillment by Israel of Palestinians' political demands.

Abbas’ path of confrontation and unilateralism gravely violates his responsibility to end the conflict through meaningful direct negotiations and compromise with Israel. His path also denies Israel basic guarantees of its security and recognition as a Jewish state. The PA’s machinations—including the submission of a polarizing, unacceptable security council motion that had been poised to fail—have made patently clear its unpreparedness to make the hard decisions necessary to finally achieve peace and coexistence.

In order to preserve the essential principle of conflict resolution through negotiation, and the fundamental right and duty of responsible states to combat terrorism, Palestinian exporting of political grievances to The Hague must be firmly rejected internationally.

Otherwise, Middle Eastern tensions will only worsen, and Palestinians' own atrocities, in stark contrast with the singular restraint of the region's only pluralistic democracy, will surely come into sharper focus.

It is time for the PA to stop hijacking key international bodies and to begin contributing, as Israel long has, to a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement: B’nai B’rith International commends the United States and Australia for voting today against a Palestinian resolution submitted to the United Nations Security Council on Monday that would have imposed an arbitrary deadline and terms for settling the Palestinian-Israeli issue. By bringing its list of demands to the United Nations and attempting to force Israel to acquiesce through a third party, the Palestinian Authority (PA) sought to exploit the world body to advance its political agenda. B’nai B’rith has vocally objected to any PA attempt to deliver an ultimatum for Israeli compliance with its objectives. This latest circumvention of negotiations with Israel is no different. In typical PA fashion, the resolution blatantly failed to ensure Israel’s security and identity as a Jewish state. We applaud the United States and Australia for their commitment to push back against these efforts in defense of a genuine and constructive path to peace. The two votes against, combined with five abstentions from Lithuania, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Korea and the United Kingdom denied the Palestinians the minimum of nine votes needed to adopt the resolution. The countries that voted in favor of the one-sided resolution—in contravention of longtime international insistence upon direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations—were Argentina, Chad, Chile, China, France, Jordan, Luxembourg and Russia. Peace can only be achieved through meaningful, bilateral negotiations. The PA’s continued internationalization of the conflict with Israel has only exacerbated the situation. Those countries that genuinely seek a peaceful resolution of this conflict must impress upon the Palestinians to cease exporting and enflaming the conflict by joining new multinational bodies, beginning with the International Criminal Court, in an effort to deploy them as political weapons against Israel.

On Dec. 22, B’nai B’rith International sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to request a clear, public pledge of American opposition to Palestinian and other efforts to impose political demands on Israel through the United Nations. The Palestinian Authority has launched a new effort to deliver an ultimatum for Israeli compliance with its political objectives, this time at the U.N. Security Council. As B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin write to Kerry in the letter, this latest circumvention of negotiations with Israel is unacceptable and the United States must consistently push back against these efforts, employing its veto power in the Security Council when necessary, if peace is to be achieved. Jacobs and Mariaschin write: “As you know, the Palestinian Authority has openly spoken of its strategy to ‘internationalize’ the conflict with Israel, and this further politicization of global institutions in the context of an already difficult regional reality is the last thing needed in the pursuit of calm, reconciliation and peace in the Middle East. Sadly, [last] week, a draft Security Council resolution was circulated that would unacceptably dictate demands of Israel outside the framework of direct negotiations and mutual compromise with the Palestinians. In the event that its inherent ultimatum is not met, the Palestinian Authority has even threatened to import tensions with Israel to the International Criminal Court, dangerously risking impediment to essential counterterrorism efforts. Reportedly, other actors in the international community have also considered advancing their own related proposals at the Security Council. The UN – along, of course, with the U.S., the European Union and Russia – is a member of the Quartet on Middle East peace, which long ago established that Palestinian-Israeli disputes can be resolved only through serious, meaningful bilateral talks. As a critical element of foreign policy, and a reflection of broad-based bipartisan commitment, the U.S. has consistently stood against the exploitation of the UN as a political tool against our key ally, Israel. It is vitally in the American national interest, and in the interest of a genuine and lasting peace, that the U.S. make known publicly and unambiguously that it will oppose a Palestinian posture of unilateralism and confrontation in global bodies, let alone motions that fail to uphold Israel’s security needs and identity as a Jewish state.”To read the full letter, click here.